CANNES, France — Women’s equality is never going happen across the world unless men get involved.

That’s according to Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, who blasted backward government policies worldwide even as she detailed her own struggles against sexism in the workplace.

“Men have to endorse the project as much as women,” Lagarde said, speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. “We found 140 countries had in their constitution discrimination against women. It all starts with the basic legal framework.”

Usually the second earners in a household, women are more heavily taxed under many state regimes, Lagarde noted.

“When you bring women to the table, at all levels of the organization, it makes a huge difference” to the economics of an organization, Lagarde said.

The 61-year-old exec recounted stories of male cohorts at previous firms having to explain at client meetings that Lagarde wasn’t there to get the coffee. Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy was seen as taking a risk when he named her his minister of agriculture and fisheries, she noted.

Elsewhere, Lagarde recalled being in the middle of the banking crisis as the French finance minister.